Robert Gates, former defense secretary, offers harsh critique of Obama’s leadership in ‘Duty’

[Geee]

Washington Post:

In a new memoir, former defense secretary Robert Gates unleashes harsh judgments about President Obama’s leadership and his commitment to the Afghanistan war, writing that by early 2010 he had concluded the president “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

 

Leveling one of the more serious charges that a defense secretary could make against a commander in chief sending forces into combat, Gates asserts that Obama had more than doubts about the course he had charted in Afghanistan. The president was “skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail,” Gates writes in “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.”

 

Obama, after months of contentious discussion with Gates and other top advisers, deployed 30,000 more troops in a final push to stabilize Afghanistan before a phased withdrawal beginning in mid-2011. “I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops, only his support for their mission,” Gates writes.

[Valin]

As a candidate, Obama had made plain his opposition to the 2003 Iraq invasion while embracing the Afghanistan war as a necessary response to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, requiring even more military resources to succeed. In Gatess highly emotional account, Obama remains uncomfortable with the inherited wars and distrustful of the military that is providing him options. Their different worldviews produced a rift that, at least for Gates, became personally wounding and impossible to repair.

 

It is rare for a former Cabinet member, let alone a defense secretary occupying a central position in the chain of command, to publish such an antagonistic portrait of a sitting president.

(Snip)

 

Lack of trust is a major thread in Gatess account, along with his unsparing criticism of Obamas aides. At times, the two threads intertwine. For example, after the devastating 2010 Haitian earthquake that had left tens of thousands dead, Gates met with Obama and Donilon, the deputy national security adviser, about disaster relief.

 

Donilon was complaining about how long we were taking, Gates writes. Then he went too far, questioning in front of the president and a roomful of people whether General [Douglas] Fraser [head of the U.S. Southern Command] was competent to lead this effort. Ive rarely been angrier in the Oval Office than I was at that moment. . . . My initial instinct was to storm out, telling the president on the way that he didnt need two secretaries of defense. It took every bit of my self-discipline to stay seated on the sofa.

OUCH!

[Valin]

Joe Biden Wrong All the Time, Says Old Colleague

Joe Coscarelli

1/7/14

 

The juicy bits of a new memoir by Robert Gates, who served as Secretary of Defense under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have been squeezed by the New York Times, including, most notably, the trash talk. Whiles the Republican Gates’s criticisms are “bipartisan,” the “controlling nature” of the Obama White House, which “took micromanagement and operational meddling to a new level,” is highlighted. And then there’s Vice-President Joe Biden:

 

Mr. Gates calls Mr. Biden “a man of integrity,” but he questions the vice president’s judgment. “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” Mr. Gates writes.

 

(Snip)

 

 

Plugs cannot be a happy camper.

[Valin]

[clearvision]

White House disputes claims in Gates' critical book

 

That was quick.

[clearvision]

White House backs Joe Biden against Bob Gates comments

 

They really must not like being criticized.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Washington Post:

In a new memoir, former defense secretary Robert Gates unleashes harsh judgments about President Obama’s leadership and his commitment to the Afghanistan war, writing that by early 2010 he had concluded the president “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

 

Leveling one of the more serious charges that a defense secretary could make against a commander in chief sending forces into combat, Gates asserts that Obama had more than doubts about the course he had charted in Afghanistan. The president was “skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail,” Gates writes in “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.”

 

Obama, after months of contentious discussion with Gates and other top advisers, deployed 30,000 more troops in a final push to stabilize Afghanistan before a phased withdrawal beginning in mid-2011. “I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops, only his support for their mission,” Gates writes.

 

As a candidate, Obama had made plain his opposition to the 2003 Iraq invasion while embracing the Afghanistan war as a necessary response to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, requiring even more military resources to succeed. In Gates’s highly emotional account, Obama remains uncomfortable with the inherited wars and distrustful of the military that is providing him options. Their different worldviews produced a rift that, at least for Gates, became personally wounding and impossible to repair.

 

It is rare for a former Cabinet member, let alone a defense secretary occupying a central position in the chain of command, to publish such an antagonistic portrait of a sitting president.

 

Gates’s severe criticism is even more surprising — some might say contradictory — because toward the end of “Duty,” he says of Obama’s chief Afghanistan policies, “I believe Obama was right in each of these decisions.” That particular view is not a universal one; like much of the debate about the best path to take in Afghanistan, there is disagreement on how well the surge strategy worked, including among military officials.

________

 

Inside man tells all.

[Geee]

He'd better be careful, something bad might come out about HIM, ala Petreus!!!!! This WH does not sit still for criticism.

[Valin]

Bob Woodward's Incoherent Afghanistan Scoop Shows His Anti-Obama Bias

ISAAC CHOTINER

 

 

(Snip)

 

 

From the Comments

 

itzikbasman 21 minutes ago

 

There's a possibly important point to be made here beyond all the gutter-sniping against Woodward. Woodward writes, (and the importance of the date noted by Woodward Chotiner elides):

 

...In a new memoir, former defense secretary Robert Gates unleashes harsh judgments about President Obamas leadership and his commitment to the Afghanistan war, writing that by early 2010 he had concluded the president doesnt believe in his own strategy, and doesnt consider the war to be his. For him, its all about getting out....

 

Chotiner quotes Gates saying this but doesn't give the date--"by early 2010"-- and rather leads in his focus on Gates's words with this:

 

...Leveling one of the more serious charges that a defense secretary could make against a commander in chief sending forces into combat, Gates asserts that Obama had more than doubts about the course he had charted in Afghanistan. The president was skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail, Gates writes...

 

The dates are important to the possible point. Obama announced the Afghan surge in December 2009 and here we have him just a few months later, according to Gates, not believing "in his own strategy...."

 

The quote of Gates Chotiner leads refers to events that occurred in March 2011.

 

In March 2011 it's not unreasonable that Obama would be deeply skeptical of his own strategy. But for him to have such deep seated doubts just a scant few months after announcing his policy, I.e., virtually simultaneously with, in effect,

 

From:

 

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304617404579306851526222552

 

Gates's own words:

 

....His fundamental problem in Afghanistan was that his political and philosophical preferences for winding down the U.S. role conflicted with his own pro-war public rhetoric (especially during the 2008 campaign), the nearly unanimous recommendations of his senior civilian and military advisers at the Departments of State and Defense, and the realities on the ground...

 

And further from Gates's own words:

 

...I don't recall Bush ever discussing domestic politicsapart from congressional oppositionas a consideration in decisions he made during my time with him...

 

With Obama, however, I joined a new, inexperienced president determined to change courseand equally determined from day one to win re-election. Domestic political considerations would therefore be a factor, though I believe never a decisive one, in virtually every major national security problem we tackled. The White House staffincluding Chiefs of Staff Rahm Emanuel and then Bill Daley as well as such core political advisers as Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs would have a role in national security decision making that I had not previously experienced (but which, I'm sure, had precedents)....

 

And further from Gates, and utterly dismaying to him, he calls it remarkable (and as quoted by Woodward):

 

....He writes: Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. . . . The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying...

 

Granted what Gates says about what Obama felt about his policy virtually on the heels of announcing it is Gates's own characterization and not necessarily the objective truth of Obama's attitude, but that time proximity doesn't allow Chotiner his defence of Obama's skepticism and doubt about his policy as the war ran on.

 

And against that given, who, other than Obama himself saying so, was/is in a better position in early 2010 to form that judgment than Gates.

 

So, not to put too fine a point on it, the possible point is that Obama sent in 30,000 American soldiers to Afghanistan to fulfill rhetorical and political obligations considering how he campaigned when he didn't believe the policy underlying that 30,000 troop commitment. If this point has substance, it's hard to imagine anything more unconsionable.

 

I may be wrong but I believe this icharge has been levelled against Obama here a few years ago by his critics on the left.

[nickydog]

He'd better be careful, something bad might come out about HIM, ala Petreus!!!!! This WH does not sit still for criticism.

 

The IRS, for starters.

[nickydog]

This book is just the beginning, folks, i'm sure of it. And as far as I'm concerned, the more, the better.

[Valin]

Bill Bennett asked a question this morning...if Gates felt this way why didn't he resign?

[Geee]

Bill Bennett asked a question this morning...if Gates felt this way why didn't he resign?

I had the feeling every time I saw him, that he stayed for his country and the troops. Trying to be a voice of sanity.

[Valin]

I am....perplexed (nothing unusual there)

 

 

 

 

Given this....

He writes: Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. . . . The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.

Why does he say....

 

Earlier in the book, he describes Hillary Clinton in the sort of glowing terms that might be used in a political endorsement. I found her smart, idealistic but pragmatic, tough-minded, indefatigable, funny, a very valuable colleague, and a superb representative of the United States all over the world, he wrote.

 

As I said I am a bit confused.

[Valin]

Excerpt

 

The Quiet Fury of Robert Gates

Bush and Obama's secretary of defense had to wage war in Iraq, Afghanistanand today's Washington

Robert M. Gates

Jan. 7, 2014 4:32 p.m. ET

 

 

All too often during my 4½ years as secretary of defense, when I found myself sitting yet again at that witness table at yet another congressional hearing, I was tempted to stand up, slam the briefing book shut and quit on the spot. The exit lines were on the tip of my tongue: I may be the secretary of defense, but I am also an American citizen, and there is no son of a bitch in the world who can talk to me like that. I quit. Find somebody else. It was, I am confident, a fantasy widely shared throughout the executive branch.

 

Much of my frustration came from the exceptional offense I took at the consistently adversarial, even inquisition-like treatment of executive-branch officials by too many members of Congress across the political spectrumcreating a kangaroo-court environment in hearings, especially when television cameras were present. But my frustration also came from the excruciating difficulty of serving as a wartime defense secretary in today's Washington. Throughout my tenure at the Pentagon, under both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama, I was, in personal terms, treated better by the White House, Congress and the press for longer than almost anyone I could remember in a senior U.S. government job. So why did I feel I was constantly at war with everybody? Why was I so often so angry? Why did I so dislike being back in government and in Washington?

 

It was because, despite everyone being "nice" to me, getting anything consequential done was so damnably difficulteven in the midst of two wars. I did not just have to wage war in Afghanistan and Iraq and against al Qaeda; I also had to battle the bureaucratic inertia of the Pentagon, surmount internal conflicts within both administrations, avoid the partisan abyss in Congress, evade the single-minded parochial self-interest of so many members of Congress and resist the magnetic pull exercised by the White House, especially in the Obama administration, to bring everything under its control and micromanagement. Over time, the broad dysfunction of today's Washington wore me down, especially as I tried to maintain a public posture of nonpartisan calm, reason and conciliation.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Gates White House Bombshells May All Be Duds

Edward Morrissey

1/9/14

 

(Snip)

That may not be so easy with the political eruption this week in Washington, following the release of excerpts from the memoirs of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The excerpts, which will undoubtedly work as intended to produce sales of the first Cabinet-level memoir of the Obama administration, allege that President Barack Obama escalated the Afghanistan war while being convinced that the strategy didnt work.

 

Gates also accused former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of opposing the similar 2007 escalation in Iraq entirely for political purposes, recalling his first-hand witness of a conversation between Clinton and Obama where she made this damaging admission.

 

(Snip)

 

This gets to the heart of Gates-gate, which is the lack of context created by the release of sensational excerpts. No doubt this will sell lots of books, but that was probably going to be true anyway. If Gates really felt that Obama deceived and manipulated voters and institutions for his own gain at the expense of the lives of American troops, one would presume that Gates would have resigned immediately to expose it.

 

Gates came close to resigning, one excerpt recounts, but that was prompted by Congressional machinations, which he bitterly condemns. The full scope of his memoir might provide some real insight into the administrations in which he served, but it does us no good to get ahead of the story before reading the entire book to grasp the context and nuance of his experience.

(Snip)

[righteousmomma]

I am....perplexed (nothing unusual there)Given this....

He writes: Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. . . . The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.

Why does he say....

Earlier in the book, he describes Hillary Clinton in the sort of glowing terms that might be used in a political endorsement. I found her smart, idealistic but pragmatic, tough-minded, indefatigable, funny, a very valuable colleague, and a superb representative of the United States all over the world, he wrote.

As I said I am a bit confused.

Me too.

[Valin]

George Will is a really smart guy...BUT on foreign affairs, the feeling I get is he would return to the 1930's.

[nickydog]

 

I am....perplexed (nothing unusual there)Given this....

He writes: Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. . . . The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.

Why does he say....

Earlier in the book, he describes Hillary Clinton in the sort of glowing terms that might be used in a political endorsement. I found her smart, idealistic but pragmatic, tough-minded, indefatigable, funny, a very valuable colleague, and a superb representative of the United States all over the world, he wrote.

As I said I am a bit confused.

Me too.

 

 

 

Me, too.

[nickydog]

 

George Will is a really smart guy...BUT on foreign affairs, the feeling I get is he would return to the 1930's.

 

 

Never mind George Will. I watched this yesterday and thought Marco Rubio did a really good job.

[Valin]

 

 

George Will is a really smart guy...BUT on foreign affairs, the feeling I get is he would return to the 1930's.

 

Never mind George Will. I watched this yesterday and thought Marco Rubio did a really good job.

 

Libertarians and Paleo-Cons just frustrate the heck out of me of foreign policy.

He mentioned that there was no war in Korea....2 points A. WRONG Bosco! B. There would a war there sometime within.... (say) 27 minutes after we left.

[Valin]

 

George Will is a really smart guy...BUT on foreign affairs, the feeling I get is he would return to the 1930's.

 

Part 2

 

[nickydog]

 

 

 

George Will is a really smart guy...BUT on foreign affairs, the feeling I get is he would return to the 1930's.

 

Never mind George Will. I watched this yesterday and thought Marco Rubio did a really good job.

 

Libertarians and Paleo-Cons just frustrate the heck out of me of foreign policy.

He mentioned that there was no war in Korea....2 points A. WRONG Bosco! B. There would a war there sometime within.... (say) 27 minutes after we left.

 

 

Paleo-Cons

[Valin]

@nickydog

 

As opposed to Neo-Cons.

[Valin]

3 Things You Don't Need Robert Gates's Book to Know

Amy Payne

January 9, 2014

 

Excerpts from a new tell-all book made quite a splash in Washington yesterday. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates apparently blasts President Obama on foreign policy and the U.S. military in his upcoming book, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.

 

But as Heritage’s James Jay Carafano said, “You don’t need a book from the former Secretary of Defense to know that many of the decisions Obama made during Gates’s watch were a disaster.”

Gates started as Secretary of Defense during President George W. Bush’s second term, and Obama asked him to stay on during his first term.

 

The revelations from Gates’s book come as no surprise to Heritage experts, who have been warning that Obama has made decisions based on his personal preference for domestic policy—at the expense of America’s standing in the world and our men and women in uniform.

 

Here are three things you don’t need to read the book to know.

 

(Snip)